Flora Segunda of Crackpot Hall

Flora Trilogy #1

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

Book by Ysabeau Wilce

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Magic, Middle Grade, Adventure, Young Adult Fantasy

419 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2007

About the author

Ysabeau S. Wilce was born in the City of Califa at the age of one. While her parents were on a diplomatic mission to the Huitzil Empire, she was cared for by an uncle what brought her up by hand. She attended Sanctuary School as a scholarship girl and then spent three years at the University of Califa where she took a double degree in Apotropaic Philosophy and Confabulation.

She then became laundress to Company C, Enthusiastic Regiment of the Army of Califa, and accompanied her unit to Fort Gehenna, Arivaipa Territory. While in Arivaipa she was bitten by a wer-flamingo; only the timely intervention by the local curandero saved her from an awful skin-shifting pink fate.

After returning to Califa to recuperate, Ysabeau was employed by the Califa Society for Historiography and Graphic Maps as an archivist. It was then she first developed an interest in the history of the Republic and began researching the City’s past.

After losing her position during the Great Bureaucratic Budgetary Freeze of ’07 she took a position as pot-girl at the Mono Real coffee bar, and during her free time began on the first volume of Califa in Sunshine and Shade: A Glorious History of A Glorious Republic. "Volume I: Metal More Attractive" appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine January of that same year, and was followed by "Volume II. The Lineaments of Gratified Desire" the next year. Other monographs on incidents in Califa history followed, until the publication of the first full length volume Flora Segunda Being the Magical Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), A House with Eleven Thousand Rooms and a Red Dog, which is available from your local bookmonger now.

In her spare time, Ysabeau enjoys chewing, sleeping, gossiping, and folding paper-towels into napkins. She currently resides in the City of Porkopolis with her husband, a cheese-swilling financier, and a dog that is not red. She does not have a butler.

Comments, compliments, critiques, and bon mots may be addressed to [email protected] where they will be duly noted, but not necessarily heeded.

To receive random updates on Ysabeau's projects and projections, please join her exclusive private mailing list. Special reports will be intermittent but very informative and entertaining.

Reviews

[Sonja Rosa Lisa ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flora Segunda ist ein 13-jähriges Mädchen, das zusammen mit ihren Eltern in einem riesigen Haus mit 11.000 Zimmern lebt. Bewohnbar sind aber nur einige wenige Zimmer, und auch diese sind in einem bemitleidenswertem Zustand. Flora muß sich selbst um fast alles kümmern, denn ihre Mutter ist als Generalin in der Armee ständig unterwegs, und ihr Vater ist geistig verwirrt. Sie bekommt ihn oft wochenlang nicht zu sehen. Flora hat noch eine ältere Schwester, die aber bereits in die Armee eingetreten ist und somit auch nicht mehr zu Hause lebt. Flora selbst soll auch in die Armee eintreten – das ist Familientradition. Sie möchte aber nicht in die Armee; viel lieber möchte sie eine Waldläuferin werden. Zunächst aber hat sie es satt, sich um das ganze Haus kümmern zu müssen. Alles ist alt und verfallen, und das nur, weil ihre Mutter einst den Butler verbannt hat. Zufällig begegnet sie dem Butler in der Bibliothek. Der Butler ist ein magisches Wesen und fast verblaßt, da er nicht mehr gebraucht wird. Er bittet Flora um etwas von ihrer Lebensenergie. Als Dank will er sich um den Haushalt kümmern. Flora willigt ein. Bald merkt sie, daß sie eine „Aminaschwäche“ entwickelt und selbst immer durchsichtiger wird. Bekommt sie keine Hilfe, wird sie sich auflösen…
Floras Welt ist eine sehr magische und fantastische Welt. Anfangs war alles sehr fremd, und ich mußte mich erst mal in die Geschichte hineinlesen. Dann aber war ich von der Handlung gefesselt. Ein Abenteuer folgt dem anderen; langweilige Szenen kommen eigentlich gar nicht vor. Es ist ein schönes Buch, das für Jungen und Mädchen gleichermaßen geeignet ist. Es regt die Fantasie an, denn alles in diesem Buch ist fantastisch.
Auch optisch ist es ein Schmuckstück. Das bunte Cover lädt zum Betrachten ein, und die Seiten sind aus schönem festem Papier. Die Überschriften der einzelnen Kapitel sind hübsch dekoriert und lassen schon einen kurzen Einblick auf den Inhalt der Kapitel zu. Zudem ist es in lesefreundlicher großer Schrift gedruckt, was ich für ein Kinder- und Jugendbuch sehr gut finde! Der Schreibstil ist leicht, so daß der Lesefluß nicht unnötig unterbrochen wird und man dieses Buch flüssig lesen kann.
Auch der Handlung kann man gut folgen, da alles sehr schön erklärt wird von Flora (das Buch ist in der Ich-Erzählform geschrieben). Insgesamt also ein schönes Buch, das den Leser für einige Zeit die Realität vergessen läßt.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted at Paperback Wonderland.

I've re-read this book (and the others in this series) so many times my paperbacks are starting to look pitiful.

Honestly, I don't understand how this book isn't topping all bestseller's lists, is it lack of promotion? I really don't know and it bothers me because the universe Ysabeau S. Wilce created is so amazing, so flawless, so addictive... Her characters are just perfect, her plots -- look I'm a picky bitch and I cannot find a fault!

For the love of whatever you hold sacred, go read these books! It breaks my heart to see mediocrity topping charts while jewels like these are ignored.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

fun and surprisingly harsh YA fantasy novel, that takes place in a world unlike any other YA fantasy novel I've ever read. plus, the main character fucks up a lot and everything does not all work out all happy for her, which is kind of refreshing for a change.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you can get past some of the cutesy language (like "choco sandwies" and other things that end in -ie that eventually I got sick of encountering) you'll find a fun adventure with a little (well, rather plump actually) girl who's on her way to finding her place in the world.

Flora Segunda (a "replacement" daughter, as the first Flora in the family was lost in the War) is getting ready for her Catorcena--and not doing a great job of it, what with having to do all the chores and look after crazy ol' Poppy while Mamma (Juliet Buchanan "Buck" Fyrdraaca ov Fyrdraaca) deals with state business, being the General of the Warlord's armies and a very busy and important person in their homeland of Califa. One day she stumbles upon their banished Butler, the house denizen who used to keep Crackpot Hall in spit spot shape before being imprisoned in the library by prim, practical Buck. His troublemaker tendencies, his desire to be made whole again, and Flora's increasing exasperation with herself and the rest of her family's sorry, shabby state set events rolling towards a grim, possibly abysmal end.

Wilce's fantastical imagined world is wonderfully egalitarian as it is socially stratified--men and women both enjoy high ranks of power and command, but grave importance is placed on tricky political situations, rank, and the elaborate social etiquette everyone must observe. Cultural references from our own world are mish-mashed together: Spanish phrases, Scots-like kilts (worn by everyone), Aztec-like mythology, and a setting both Wild-Westerny and medieval at the same time. Oh, and I didn't even mention magick yet.

I really loved the descriptions of the rooms of Crackpot Hall and the fancy names for everything (some crucial scenes take place in the fun, corpse-packed Cloakroom of the Abyss), Flora's dream of becoming a ranger instead of adhering to the Fyrdraaca duty of becoming a soldier, and her descriptions of the life and times of the legendary Head Ranger Nini Mo. I also adore Poppy, though he is kinda crazy.

The story can get a bit dark at times, and conservative parents may worry about the portrayals of drunks, and fourteen year-olds with guns (though unloaded), and feisty magic words rendered in WingDings. (I'm just saying, there are people who worry about that kind of thing, but I also suspect they have a hard time telling the difference between fiction and non-fiction)

Wilce balances the gloom with a hefty dose of humor, delicious snacks (or snackys), and the occasional fluffy towel. For a taste, check your "horoscope" in the Alta Califa. I think mine says "Running water could ruin your relatives rapidly."

I can't wait for the next installment!

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure why I wasn't in love with this book the way everyone else seems to be. The setting was pretty imaginative and I did want to find out what was going on with the backstory and current political events etc, but somehow I couldn't get into it. One problem may have been that it is written with a sort of preciousness that I have noted as increasingly common in tween fastasy, which may be an attempt to emulate the tone of some Edwardian and Late Victorian children's literature; however, this only works if you have a light touch with it, otherwise it comes across as cutesy and fake.

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very satisfying. Can't wait to read the sequel.

***

2009 September 20

I don't think the Possum loved this as much as I have, but oh, my, how I love this.

A steampunk world without rigid gender roles but with magick. A book about a girl turning 14 who doesn't want to join the army like her perfect elder sister, and who is sick of holding together the crumbling 11,000-room family home.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is either YA or children's fantasy, but I can't really make up my mind which. Flora, called Segunda because there was another Flora, who was a good deal more perfect but died, lives in Crackpot Hall, one of the four magickal Great Houses in the city. She struggles to keep the decrepit house from falling apart, to keep her messed up father from destroying the kitchen, and to write the speech for her Catorcena - her all-important fourteenth birthday, when she becomes legally an adult. Mostly, she wishes that she could tell her military mother that she doesn't want to be a soldier, and distracts herself with grand daydreams about her impossible future as an outlawed Ranger. Then she finds a pale, sickly boy far up in a lost room of the house, who promises to be the solution to rather a lot of problems. Maybe.

I'm in about sixteen different minds about this book. I'll start with the good stuff. This is a fantastically original world. A good part of the naming and folklore seems to be based on hispanic and native South American culture - the Catorcena, Flora Segunda, the Quetzal overlords, Lord Axacaya - but the surnames are something else again - Flora Fyrdraaca, Udo Landadon ov Sorrel. The Great Houses with their supernatural butlers are creepy and fantastic, and the way that magic works, with the Gramatica Words, is intricate and convincing.

The characters are also great. Flora is full of ideas, and can talk up an adventure like nothing, but she is wretched at stealth and quick thinking and most of the other things she adores about the idea of being a Ranger. Her best friend, Udo, is sartorially splendid and a little obsessed about it. Where Flora's idol is the great Ranger Nini Mo, Udo's is the legendary Dainty Pirate. At one point Flora casually mentions her pink and his red toenail polish. Valefor, the sickly boy Flora finds, is also rather marvellous, in an amoral, manipulative, secretive, sweet-talking sort of way.

The style is fun. There are dark elements - particularly Flora's father, who was tortured until he was broken, and now lives up in his tower, except when he comes down to be pathetic and crazy and destroy the kitchen - but they come in on the edges, and Flora's usually fairly convincing in her facade of not caring.

Despite all this, it took me a very long time to get into the book. This was pretty much purely due to two stylistic decisions, which consistently jolted me out of the book. One was the avoidance of contractions. "I am not going to", "I was not happy to see", "There is more than one way to" etc. It's a dialogue thing, but since the POV is chatty first person, it's all-pervasive. It gives the text a childish, awkward air. The second thing infantilised the text even more. This was diminutives for ordinary words. It wasn't just Flora using them; everybody used them. The worst was "sandwie" for sandwich.

The plot was also frustrating. Flora and Udo (and Valefor) have all sorts of adventures - real adventures, with life and death stakes - but they're all terribly circular. They never achieve anything, a lot of the things they believe turn out to have not really happened, some of the danger isn't real, and by the end of the book they haven't done anything. Flora's grown up some, which is supposed to be the point I guess, but I was still frustrated.

Final verdict: I was glad I read it, and I think Wilce is a writer to watch. But there was too much frustration for it to be love.

[sjams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I fell in love with the description - it sounds like a magical world, full of wonder, where you always find something new with the thousand rooms. But then the story really doesn't talk about that much. More like the mundane life of the girl who lives there, then how she takes on a problem. There is not nearly enough magic in it for my taste, especially in a world so situated in magic! Does she never wonder how or why she can wield magic? That's what would be the most interesting to me.

The world is absolutely fascinating: I suppose it takes place in an alternate-reality California, near San Francisco based on the Presidio. I love things that take place near the home of my heart. What else happens in people's day to day lives there? Why is magic banned? Who else lives in the Great Houses and what do they do? Why was the Butler of Flora's house banished???

None of my questions were solved in this book. It was more the adventures of the girl, whom I didn't really care about, either. I cheered her growing up in the end, as one cheers all people growing up, but throughout I just... I wished she asked more questions. I wished she thought less about her idol and what she hates about the world and more about why the world is the way it is. Or things about the world. I was pretty disappointed.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like something I should have really liked, but didn’t. It’s fantastical, but unsure of its direction; whimsical, but that whimsy papers over a poorly paced plot; swaggering and uneven; predictable and unconventional both. I don’t like any of the characters and I’m not sure any of them have journeys in this book. Other than physical ones, of course, and those are so outrageous in scope I wasn’t sure what story this book was supposed to be telling.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flora Nemain Fydraaca ov Fydraaca was the second Flora - Flora Segunda - born to her illustrious family, one of the most powerful in the city of Califa. The legacy of that other, earlier Flora - the one whose loss in the War had driven her father, Poppy, mad - hung over the great Fydraaca household, Crackpot Hall, with its eleven thousand rooms, all falling into disrepair in the absence of its magical Butler. As Flora (Segunda) reluctantly prepares for her upcoming Catorcena, or fourteenth birthday celebration, after which she will be considered an adult, and sent off to the Barracks, where all the Fydraacas - being a military family - are trained, she finds herself being drawn into the mystery of Valefor, the magical denizen of Crackpot and her family's banished Butler, as well as an adventure involving the Dainty Pirate - aka Boy Hansgen, the sidekick of Flora's own personal hero, Nini Mo, erstwhile leader of Califa's Rangers. Can Flora, together with her best friend Udo, triumph in her efforts to free both Valefor and Boy Hansgen, or will this new connection to Valefor drag her into Nothingness, and the Abyss...?

Despite its undeniable virtues - its highly original (and convincing) world-building, its fascinating use of language - I was convinced for approximately 90% of my read that Flora Segunda was going to be no more than a solid, enjoyable three-star title for me. I did appreciate the aforementioned world-building, of course - the alternate Californian/Mexican setting, with Califa being dominated by the Aztec-like Huitzils - as well as the mixture of Spanish, Italian(?) and Icelandic language, in the vocabulary of Califa. As someone who's studied Icelandic, I was thrilled to see that the eð - the Icelandic letter ð, pronounced with a voiced "th" sound, as in the beginning of the English word them, and distinguished from the unvoiced "th" sound, as in the English word thorn, which is represented by the letter þ - kept appearing, in names like Landaðon and Haðraaða!

I also appreciated the fact that this was a world of true gender equality, in which women held the same rank as men (Flora's mother is the Warlord's general), and was delighted to learn, through our discussion of the book, over in the Children's Fiction Club which I run, that the idea of "Califa" is actually taken from the work of fifteenth-century Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, who wrote a series of adventure stories about the explorer Esplandián, and his encounters with Queen Califia, of the island of California (thanks, Bun!). I think I may have to track down some of these stories...

But despite these undeniable virtues, and my interest in the city of Califa, its customs and history, I couldn't say that I was emotionally involved with the characters, to any great extent, until the final section of the book. It was only when Flora met the earlier incarnation of Poppy, while fleeing through Bilskinir House, that I suddenly found myself gripped with any sense of urgency, or concern for the fate of the heroine. Then, on the very last page of the book, when Flore reflects upon the fact that, despite the challenges still ahead, and the failures behind, she had escaped from the worst fate of all - that of Nothingness - it all snapped into place for me, and my appreciation for the book rose dramatically. It suddenly seemed to me that this was the story of a common teenage experience - feeling as if one were a "nothing," being afraid that one would never be anything but a "nothing" - clothed in an appealingly fantastic shell. I've no idea if that was the author's intention, but it lent the entire story an emotional significance, for me, that it hadn't previously had, and convinced me that I needed to read the next installment, Flora's Dare!

I don't know that others will interpret the story as I did, but I think that all fantasy lovers - particularly those who relish intricate and entirely unfamiliar worlds - will enjoy it.

[Nannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has such potential to be a fun, magical story for young adults, but the racism and ableism really ruined the experience for me.

Book content warnings:
ableism!
racism

Flora's world is a parallel universe set in what's probably California, USA (Califa). World building relies heavily on the author's past training as a military historian, and although that's very admirable, I'm still a bit side-eying the decision to fill a fictional world, where an author has total power over, with cultures based on war. Especially given what's going on in our world today.

Anyway, Flora Segunda is the daughter of the famous General, basically one of the most powerful people in Califa--second only to the Warlord himself. She's expected to train at the Barracks when she's older (replacing college in this universe, I believe), though what she really wants to do is become a Ranger and study the outlawed Magick like her idol, Nini Mo.

But she also has to deal with the powerful and banished Butler of her house, who begs to be restored and, to do it, may have to connect himself to Flora in a way she could come to regret later.

The plot line becomes a little busy, and halfway through, I wasn't quite sure what was the overall plot. Flora's situation with her magickal Butler? Or what was happening with the Rangers? When the story went off to explore one of these plots, it would completely forget about the other one. It felt like two ministories smashed together.

But okay, to what made me dislike the novel. Flora's father, Poppy, is a man portrayed as having mental illness. Specifically, PTSD and perhaps others as well. He was a prisoner of war, he lost people he loved, etc. He experiences mood swings, periods where he is not himself, doesn't remember who Flora is, etc. And yet Flora's opinion of him is unchangingly: "people go through tough stuff all the time; why is Poppy special?" As an author trained as a military historian, I would expect Ysabeau S. Wilce to be more sympathetic to people with PTSD.

Not only does Flora think this about her father, she also hates "taking care of him so much" that she thinks he's an unbearable burden (thanks for reminding me also--a person with mental and physical disabilities--that I'm a burden to my family and loved ones). If this were only her thoughts at the beginning of the book, and if they were later challenged and corrected, it wouldn't be so bad. But this never happens. Instead, she has a nice "talk" with him, and it's his responsibility to correct his behavior, and basically "overcome his mental illness" to take care of his family better. Bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit.

There's also the very racist world building here. Califa seems mostly populated by white latin@s. Or at least, the main characters are all white latin@s. Is this in itself a problem? No, of course not. But the problem lies when the "villains" of the story are all based on Aztec culture, called the Huitzils (the "Huitzil Overlords"). This culture is filled with the most absolute bloodthirsty and vile people. Flora even fears they've flavored her hot chocolate with blood. It's just . . . tiring. Sure, the Aztecs had many rituals long ago that were far different from our own, but to like . . . present their culture in the same time/universe our own in a similar universe and write only about their savagery and none of their wisdom . . . seems incredibly racist.

So overall, what could've been a great adventure was spoiled by some nasty ableism and racism. It could've been easily avoided, so I don't know what possessed this author to add it in.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a seriously impressive and original young adult fantasy novel. The name alone, Flora Segunda of Crackpot Hall, promises a whimsical adventure. But it’s hard to describe just how quickly Ysabeau Wilce pulls the rug from beneath the reader, removing any possibility of normality and dragging us into a fantastic world where anything can happen—but that doesn’t mean it will.

Flora’s world is one where magic is real and a part of daily life, but it’s rather unfashionable. She lives in a house—Crackpot Hall—made of magic. Its rooms rearrange themselves, and indeed, seem to go on without end. This alone is a cool enough concept around which to base an entire book, so it surprised me that Wilce actually ignores this for the majority of the book and sends Flora off on adventures that take her all around the city (and even a little beyond it). But before we get to that, let’s talk about Crackpot Hall.

I love Doctor Who, and one of my favourite things about the show is the TARDIS and its limitless potential. Imagine stepping through those police box doors and discovering that vast world to explore—let alone all of the places the TARDIS can travel! Crackpot Hall is kind of like that. It’s a house of limitless potential—albeit much reduced and rundown since Flora’s mother abrogated the house’s ghostly butler, who is responsible for maintaining the house in all senses.

So Flora, who is a bit of a rebel, decides one day to use the Elevator to retrieve an overdue book in her rush to school. Instead she emerges on an unfamiliar floor, stumbles into a massive library, and meets the banished butler, Valefor. Gradually he persuades her to help restore him—and hence the grandeur of Crackpot Hall. It’s an idea that thirteen-going-on-fourteen-year-old Flora, steeped in adventure stories of the late Ranger Nini Mo, can’t resist. She’s tired of feeling like her family has been reduced to second-rate hasbeens. And she doesn’t want to go to the Barracks like every Fryrdraaca before her.

What ensues can essentially be characterized as “Flora makes things more complicated.” She gets into a boundless, fluid adventure—with her best friend Udo as her sidekick. At every turn, she comes up with brilliant plans. Amazingly, they seldom work.

Yeah, this is a young adult book where the protagonist regularly and spectacularly fails.

Flora’s plans often work partially, then backfire, and as she comes up with a new and intricate Ranger-inspired idea, events conspire to sweep her up and force her to reconsider yet again. I love this. I love that Wilce walks us through Flora’s thought process even as she makes Flora’s adventures more difficult and—despite the magical setting—more realistic. For example, at one point Flora and Udo determine they need to rescue the Dainty Pirate—an actual criminal who is nevertheless a very romantic inspiration to Udo. They hatch and begin to implement a daring plan to free the Dainty Pirate prior to his execution. This is two thirteen-year-olds posing as soldiers, with a forged transfer order for a prisoner, in order to rescue a pirate. Wilce couches the adventure in the vocabulary and polish expected for a whimsical children’s tale, but it’s actually quite a serious experience … and it all goes pear-shaped. Because, you know, rescuing a pirate prisoner is actually quite difficult, and Flora and Udo just don’t manage to pull it off very well.

I loved the character of Flora. She is adventurous and brave but also thoughtful and obvious interested in reading and learning. Alas, her parents have not been the best to her: her father mopes around in his den, suffering from intense PTSD, and her mother is a workaholic. Speaking of which, Flora Segunda does gender right: Califan society appears to have fantastic gender equity. Flora’s mother is a general in the Califan army, in command of a regiment, and consumed by her job. No one ever questions her ability to command or fight because she’s a woman; no one looks askance at the idea that Flora would, as a Fyrdraaca, naturally be joining the Barracks after she turns fourteen. Oh, and Califan fashion is for everyone—men and women—to wear kilts.

So Flora Segunda is a story of how the titular character realizes that life is not, in fact, a Ranger adventure novel with her as the protagonist. And in fact, towards the end, the book suddenly takes on a much darker, Coraline-esque tone. Because during all of Flora’s adventuring and mucking about with magic, she has actually managed to place herself in grave existential danger. And her only recourse is an enemy of her mother’s. When she seeks him out, he upbraids her rather harshly—but it’s totally deserved. Flora has been running amok, behind her mother’s back, shirking her duties and responsibilities in order to learn forbidden magic and spring a pirate. That’s not to say that this is a book that condemns fun. But it certainly puts such adventures in a neat perspective.

It’s a rollicking and wonderful adventure that nevertheless has a sense of responsibility at its core. Although it’s pitched for a much younger audience than I normally read—younger, I suspect, than the targets of, say, The Hunger Games—I still enjoy how … earnest it is. The protagonist is slightly plump, not jaw-droppingly pretty. She doesn’t have two men—supernatural or otherwise—chasing after her. She isn’t fighting back against the government (even though, by all accounts, it doesn’t seem to be a very good one).

I guess I’m trying to say that it’s just so nice to read a book for children that is entertaining, well-written, and full of positive depictions of people, professions, and even pirates. Moreover, Wilce genuinely manages to surprise and delight in the way in which she develops the plot, enough to keep me guessing and make me want to learn more.

If children’s literature is your fare, then by all means, dare. I highly recommend it.

[Melissa McShane · Rating 5 out of 5]

8/27/19: Listening to this as an audiobook, I was more aware of how slowly it starts. Some of that is that Wilce gives very few clues as to what the book is "really" about (as I say below), making things that turn out to be important seem initially kind of random. But when it gets going, it really moves. I also had forgotten which things happen in this one and which in the sequel, Flora's Dare. It was fun and sad catching hints of what gets revealed later. It's still a fantastic book.

5/7/12: I love this book so much--it's got a quirky, interesting main character, a unique style, great alternate history, and Wilce knows how to end a book with a zinger that's half cliffhanger and half electric shock.

The Republic of Califa, Flora's home, recently lost a war with the Huitzil Empire--officially they're a "client state," but their independence is a fragile thing--in which Flora's father was captured, convicted of war crimes, and tortured into madness. It's Flora's job to watch over him, despite her being not-quite-fourteen, because her mother and her older sister are both in the military and away from home most of the time. Flora's mother is, in fact, the commanding general of the army of Califa (sexual equality is an accepted reality in this series, and it goes both ways--men wear kilts and makeup just as women do) and Flora is pretty much unsupervised. Wilce is smart enough to realize that kids don't love this as much as you'd think. Flora also has to deal with all the cleaning and cooking and the preparations for her Catorcena celebration, which marks her becoming an adult.

The story gets interesting when she tracks down her House's Denizen--and both those capitalized words are too complicated to explain fully. The short version is that Flora's family is important enough to have a denizen, a magical creature bound to the family and home, that ought to maintain the house and do all the tedious chores Flora is stuck with. For unexplained reasons, Flora's mother banished their denizen, Valefor, when Flora was just a baby. When Flora discovers him, he's a shadow (literally) of his former self and incapable of doing anything but drift around. Out of compassion, Flora shares some of her Anima (personal magic and willpower) with him, making him stronger--but it's not enough; she'll have to find his focus to restore him fully. Flora and her best friend Udo, in trying to do this, get tangled up in several other seemingly unrelated plots and ultimately end up solving some far more important problems.

Flora is an interesting, non-standard fantasy heroine: not slender but not obsessed with her weight, not beautiful but almost completely indifferent to that fact, clever but fallible, and such a great mix of competence and fallibility that it was impossible not to like her. Because she's the first-person narrator, her inner voice is what shapes the story, and Flora Segunda becomes a unique mix of old-world California and late-Victorian attitude with the fashion sense of District One from The Hunger Games. At the heart of all this is the idea "what if Spain had established a Californian colony and then the Aztecs had conquered it?" but that's not what the novel is about; the Huitzil overlords have no influence over daily life in Califa, and Flora and Udo encounter their presence only when they get involved in darker, secret things. One of the things I love about the book is how casually the alternate-reality stuff is integrated, like the fact that Flora has classes in school specifically intended to help her prepare for this Catorcena ritual.

One big problem with this book is that it's hard to tell what the story's about until maybe halfway through. It starts with the whole Valefor thing, but then Flora overhears her mother the General talking about an execution order that relates to something she and Udo talked about earlier, and they go haring off on that quest, and then there are complications from her relationship with Valefor...by the end of the book, it's clear that everything that seemed to be tangential is part of the plot resolution, but the first time I read it, it was the intriguing world and characters that kept me going, not the story. If you're willing to stick with it, I think Flora Segunda is worth the effort.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second read. Still not sure how I feel, because I want so very much to love it and I just can't. Too much missing, too much added. I believe there should have been more about the house. More about the world and how the magic worked (hello, first in a trilogy, do at least some coherent world-building). Less about the random adventures & asides that have nothing to do with plot or character development.

And the main character, well, she acted like a younger child, heedless & whiny, but apparently she's not a child, because the reader is supposed to accept that it's ok that mama is never there, and that dad is always drunk & often throwing violent temper tantrums, and this 13 year old has to Go to school, Clean house incl. laundry & kitchen, Take care of herself incl. comfort & love herself, Feed herself & make food available to her father, Tend the horses (including mucking the stables, feeding the, etc.), and Tend the dogs. Why is that not considered child abuse? Why does everyone, including Flora herself, think that she should be able to graciously handle all that?

Ok, off to decide whether or not I want to continue in the series.

[Yue · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the book; the good stuff were pretty good and the bad stuff pretty bad. It started out great; I thought I was going to love it, but slowly it went downhill.

"Yes" to:

- Magical. The world created had enough magic for me to be very satisfied. I love the butlers (the detizens). Valefor was the kind of character that I enjoy to meet in Fantasy books. He was kind of a Califer: attached magically to the house. He could do anything and be the perfect butler; he was a bit of a complainer but he was fun and loyal. This of course, involves all the other butlers of the other Houses. Paimon was also an excellent character; looking like a fierce demon but actually, a clever and kind butler.

- The houses: I love big houses where you get lost with the thousands rooms. Besides, a stubborn Elevator and a huge Biblioteca. And of course, the butlers =)

- The different kinds of Bows.


"No" to:

- Flora: ok, ok, she is a teenager and teenagers behaved that way. But that does not mean that it is fun to read when a girl of 13-going-on-14 behaves like a know-it-all to end then with a failure and then be all self-pity. First she is nice to Valefor, then she is selfish. First she is nice to Udo, then she is selfish. And so on. She claims she wants to be a ranger, cannot stop saying "Nini Mo this, Nini Mo that" but she is not very clever, not very brave and jumps into conclusions without analyzing it first. All these things that Lord Axacaya told Flora were nothing but the truth. Overall, I did not like her, and I was indifferent to Udo, Poppy, Buck, etc.

- Absent parents. Although Flora has both her parents alive, they are not part of her daily life. How could she be responsible otherwise, with a father in a delicate constitution, and an absent mother?

- The political side: I was a bit bored with the whole Boy-Pirate part. From beginning to end.

- If you are going to use Spanish words, please research before doing it. It is not hard, especially if you are going to use ONE word instead of a sentence. We have dictionaries, Google and thousands other easy ways, for Heaven's sake. This is not the first time I encounter a stupid mistake like Idioto. Non-Spanish speakers think that everything that ends in A should be female and everything that ends in O should be male. While this is true in a 90% of the cases, it is not in words like "Idiota", "Mascota", etc. These words are both female and male. Do your research please before making an embarrassment of yourself. This mistake alone annoyed the hell out of me.

- That end. And all the questions without answers. What happened to the first Flora? What is the story of Poppy? And of Buck and the Pirate? What about Valefor? And so on.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the book opens, Flora Fyrdraaca is supposed to be writing a speech for her fourteenth birthday party, wherein she will celebrate her wonderful family, house, and future. The problem is, she doesn't think any of them are all that wonderful. Her house used to be a Great House, until her mother banished the magickal Butler; now it has eleven thousand rooms and only one bathroom. There are only four Fyrdraacas left: Flora herself, her crazy father, her military mother, who's never home, and her sister Idden, also in the military. The military is a family tradition, but Flora would rather be a cunning, magick-using Ranger. When she discovers the exiled Butler, though, she gets a lot more magick and excitement than she bargained for.

I loved this so much that I can't really point to what I loved easily. It's set in Califa, a sort of alternate California, and the worldbuilding is wonderful; it's very refreshing to have something other than medieval or Renaissance Europe, and it's full of marvelous little details which make it feel very complex and real. Flora is a lovely narrator: clever and adventurous and adolescently impulsive. And the writing is just great, witty and full of inventive words without being twee (though I know other readers have found it a little twee). [ETA: On second read, yes, I also find it a little twee, but not unbearably so.) I do hope the sequel is as good.

[Lightreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check it out, it’s fantasy not Europe! As opposed to fantasy not!Europe, I mean. Young adult story of thirteen-year-old Flora’s magical exploits in alternate, militarized California.

You know how sometimes a young adult book can surprise you with its subtlety, its emotional complexity and maturity springing from a simple story? Yeah, this one went exactly the opposite direction: from a rich, textured, fascinating background world, and a well-drawn familial mess, and a lot of interesting political history springs your basic story of an adolescent doing a series of extremely foolish things, each in attempts to fix the results of the last. A perfectly passable story, though the sidekick was actually pretty annoying and I kept being irritated by the infantilism of Flora’s language – tummy? Potty? This girl is about to be enlisted in the military? Hokay.

But mostly I kept wanting to shove Flora and her endless toing and froing out of the way so I could get a better look at everything else. Because seriously, everything else is great, and I want to know all about it. Presumably it was magic that let the Central American empires survive, so did it also alter other European colonization patterns? Was it something other than gold that brought viable numbers west? What triggered such a radical revision of gender roles such that women serve – and command – without question? Alas, the book did not satisfy, but perhaps the sequel will.

[Parisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't wait to be done with this book but it kept going and going. Flora Segunda was around 400 pages long, and I'm not sure it really needed to be that long. Not much happened. I was intrigued with all the talk of Flora wanting to be a Ranger and then stumbling upon a Ranger. And that particular story-line, at least in this first book, fell flat. Instead the book focused on her loss of Will. Also interesting, but not what I was expecting or hoping for. It seems like maybe this book was just to set up the story and the world for later books, which might be more interesting and adventuresome.

I liked that everything had A Name (yes, in caps). The Bedroom of Redoubtable Dreams. The people could bow or curtsy and it would be described as bowing Respect to an Elder or somesuch. I also liked the way the book ended (which Shall Not be Mentioned). I didn't like that words like "cool" or "triple dog dare" somehow found their way into this world. It didn't seem plausible that these people in this time period in that world would say those things. Especially since it seemed as though the author made up certain words for their culture. "Ayah so" instead of even so. Or just "ayah" for okay. Also slightly off-putting was that the other race was based on Aztecan culture.

If the second book focuses on Flora becoming a Ranger and learning more magic then I might give it a chance.

[Oyceter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think this is quite like anything I've read for a while. It's got wonderfully bizarre worldbuilding and great prose: I'd rec this to anyone who enjoyed Mary Poppins or Peter Pan (the books! not the movies!).

Full review: http://oyceter.livejournal.com/627770...

[Snarktastic Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've postponed writing this review because I wasn't sure what to rate it. Since it inspired me to read a different book and I liked this one more and rated that one 3, I settled on 4 for this one.

This book reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time. Not sure why - probably the age range of the protagonist. This is also what threw off my rating. I was just not really sure how much I enjoyed reading a book about a 13 year old. Evidently, more than I realized. I do keep thinking about this one and will very likely read the sequel.

The relationships in this book are very interesting. We have mom and best friend and dad and dogs. I think it was the dogs that sealed my affection for this.

[Heather Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing....there are not enough words to tell of the awesomeness of this title. Although others find it muddled and a bit schizophrenic..I did not find it to be the case. I do not know if everyone can appreciate the nature of the tale. But I found it to be unique in a world of YA literature that just all feels the same. Flora is strong and NOT ANGSTY...which is rare. Her sidekick is amusing and full of life. Characterizations...amazing. Plot is good and surprising. Characters are multi-leveled with no one all good or all bad. Excellent with a capital E!

From School Library Journal:

Flora Fyrdraaca is approaching 14, the age of majority, and preparing for its celebratory Catorcena. She lives in Crackpot Hall, a once-glorious but now decaying home with 11,000 rooms that randomly shift positions. Her mother is the Warlord's Commanding General and a workaholic. Her father, a broken man due to his past imprisonment for war crimes, is most often an enraged drunk who trashes the house. Oversleeping one morning, Flora uses the forbidden Elevator to get her overdue library book and finds herself in a strange part of the house where Valefor, the family butler, has been banished. He is losing his Anima and convinces Flora to let him suck some of hers, which causes her to develop Anima Enervation, and she begins to fade. Here the complicated plot in this overlong first novel becomes as shifting and rambling as Crackpot Hall itself. Flora and her friend Udo try to find a fetish or Semiote Verb to restore Valefor, but then get waylaid. Flora uncovers why Poppy is such a broken man, swims in the slimy pond in her garden to touch the refreshing Current and be restored, and much more-all in the week preceding her Catorcena.

[Res · Rating 3 out of 5]

The one where Flora accidentally reawakens the elemental spirit who serves as a butler, tries to rescue him, tries to rescue a heroine's sidekick, and then has to rescue herself.

I've read and adored Wilce's stories of Hardhands and Tiny Doom, and that was what I really wanted to read. This story apparently takes place at least a generation later than those stories. I'm struggling a bit to be fair and not downgrade it for not being some other book than the book it is.

It's a fairly standard preteen plot. Our plucky, underappreciated heroine encounters a supernatural creature whose plight resembles hers. It offers to solve some of her problems in exchange for a seemingly harmless favor. This causes problems, and the solutions cause more problems. She drives the adult reader insane by never asking questions or consulting experts. In the end, her adventures give her the strength to follow her heart. So: C+ for plot, C+ for characterization.

For world-building maybe B+. Califa, the denizens, the politics and names are fascinating, but the novel lacks the sense of menace that I enjoyed in the stories. In the stories, too, that pervasive menace interacted in an interesting way with the childishness of some of the language ("covered with yuck," "sandwies," etc.), and without it, the language bugged me.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flora lives in a huge, crumbling house with her dogs, horses, and the mad Poppy. Her fourteenth birthday is coming up, when she'll become an adult and join the army, as all of her family has done before her. But Flora is round as a dumpling and likes reading adventure stories more than fighting, and she'd rather learn to be a sneaky spy than a magic-less soldier. When she stumbles upon the secret to her house's decrepitude, she embarks upon an adventure that will forever alter the state of her family and herself.

I loved the exuberant tone of this novel. I only wish it was more complete in itself, and less a set-up for a sequel. The world-building is excellent, and I love that for once, a YA fantasy novel is not set in some alternate-England but instead, an Aztec-influenced California. And each of the characters is fascinating: contradictory but brave Flora; her best friend, the vain but generous Udo; the tragic and exasperating Poppy; and the selfish Valefor.

[l · Rating 2 out of 5]

it's dull tbh. read dwj instead.

[Maša · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Aztec-inspired and magickal land, Flora has to find her own Will, deal with her family and her House, and her own wishes and dreams - all before her 14th birthday.

This delightful novel filled me with glee, its colorful characters and interesting world making this a quick and enjoyable read.

[Cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the world-building here, but it took me a while to warm to the characters. In fact, I appreciate Flora in this book more as the starting point of a series heroine than as the protagonist of this book alone; I had the first and second books in hand together and read them back-to-back, which definitely helped the first book.

A couple of nice points:
* I do love fantasy worlds which actually have gender equality in careers.
* Women wear stays instead of bras! And nobody at all wears pants or any type of leggings, as far as I could tell.
* Magic buzzes and has all sorts of non-standard descriptions.
* There's public transportation by horse-drawn bus.

I wonder a great deal about the history of Califa, its immigration patterns, and what relation it had to Huitzil (the Aztec nation) before being conquered in the previous generation. There are only a handful of Huitzil people in the city, apparently, all with diplomatic ties to Huitzil and all some level of physically altered (skin flayed off for religion, human/animal hybrid servents, and [spoiler redacted:]), and all of the non-Huitzil people have blond or red hair and green or blue eyes. Language-wise, I think the non-English terms are a mix of Spanish, French, and what may be Icelandic, Old English, and/or Dutch (I really want to get some of my linguist friends to read this book and explain it to me, actually -- where does one get a name like "Cyrenacia Sidonia Brakespeare ov Haðraaða"?!). At one point in the second book -- this isn't a spoiler -- there are several mythological beasts seen, all of them traditionally European. Also in the second book -- and this is a mild spoiler, so I'll be vague -- at least one power of vodoun bokors is attributed (pop-culturally) to Huitzil priests, so the Caribbean alternate history must also have had interesting twists!

This book is, as the second book shows, clearly the launch of a series -- it's marked as a trilogy, but any world that already has additional short stories seems destined for more than three books -- and I'm definitely interested in reading more.

[Nafiza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been meaning to write a review for this for ages. Flora Segunda is a middle grade/early teen novel that takes on surprisingly complex themes in a deliberately light manner that serves to delineate the importance of the themes under discussion. Flora lives in a world where there are Great Houses whose sentient form manifests itself in the form of a butler. There is a dual world, magic and predetermined destiny – of Flora’s mother has anything to say about it. Flora is one of those characters who is immediately likeable and I found myself warming to her right from the very beginning.

She lives in a Great House whose “butler” has been banished by her mother, the head of the Family (the Great Houses come with a Family attached to them) who thinks that magic is an easy way out. Of course it falls to Flora to do all the housework and look after the father who has not been the same ever since an incident in the past that cost them Flora the first. There is a pithiness to the novel that I like a lot. Flora’s best friend who follows her on all her adventures, their Harry Potter-esque missions and the colourful characters populating a fully realized world with its own myths, legends and history. I loved it.

I also loved how Flora grows in the novel. She has some terrific adventures and makes some important discoveries but more than that, she realizes that her parents are people and that she too has agency and the right to speak out against the things she needs to. There is also a lot of adventure and some chuckles. I was impressed by this story and recommend it to anyone who loves reading spunky heroines, magic and creepy houses.

[Brandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an impressively mediocre book.

The description is a little misleading--it sounds as if Flora is somehow trapped in her mysterious house and needs to find her way out, which really isn't the case at all. It's hard to pin down what the main plot thread is, because it's almost like there are two or three episodes here that are tied together with "before we do X, what about Y?" and "I know I should be doing X, but Y is my priority right now." The bits where Flora performs magic seem like afterthoughts, bits thrown in to give the book some "magickal mishaps."

And speaking of that really long subtitle: glass-gazing sidekick? because he's vain, which comes up only rarely and isn't a plot point? Sure, okay. Two Ominous Butlers (one blue)? Someone's got to help me out, because I don't have a clue who Butler No. 2 (Blue) is.

Now I've read a fair number of books with misleading titles and episodic plots, and I'm fine with it. This one... the writing was fine, the plot oscillated nicely between build-up and climax, the characters were, for the most part, sympathetic and fully drawn. And yet this just didn't grab me. Maybe it's because the world-building was a little (okay, a lot) weak, so I never connected with it.

I'm leading the middle school book discussion on this tomorrow; I'll see how its intended audience feels about it.

[N. Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I, while reading this book, enjoyed it, although I would not, unless someone was looking for such a book, recommend it. It was not predictable, which is found all to often in books, and even though it did have a little of the main character making stupid mistakes, it did not remove from the experience. I seemed not to look forward to picking it up, but once I had started to read, found myself not wanting to put it down. Altogether it was very odd, and even though the writing style was also different, maybe even childish, it was relatively good. But, and I want to make this clear, I ALMOST said it wasn't worth it's time. It wasn't not worth it's time, but it wasn't worth it, either. Again, I would not recommend this book, unless someone said to me,"I want a book which tells about a childish heroine learning that you can't trust everyone, and that doing the brave thing isn't always the right thing, and that you never really get to know someone," but no has asked me yet, and I do not believe anyone ever will be that specific.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

A fun and charming story with a young girl protagonist (13, going 14) who is a strong and likable character. She suffers from the plague that such characters tend to have - generally neglectful but loving parents - but the parents in this one are at least present to an extent and not entirely useless as in some other series of the same ilk.

The other characters are interesting and generally likable, and the world itself is both strange and familiar, being loosely based on 18th Century traits and mannerisms, but infused with magic and a whole host of other oddities.

My main complaint, if complaint is really the word, is that it's very much a plot-based story and while the characters are likable and sympathetic, I felt a certain distance from them. Part of it is writing, I think, and part of it is simply the type of story - I tend to prefer character-based stories.

That said, I could easily see this being transformed into a movie or series, being a very visually oriented story - and I did like it more than enough to continue with the series.